Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Jackson in HRPG-World: 3-1 A Sticky Starting Scrap

Time to set Jackson off on another (mis)adventure. No prizes for guessing the game.

Jackson in HRPG-World: 3-1 A Sticky Starting Scrap

“Jakasan.”

Mostly asleep, Ian Jackson wasn’t sure if the feminine voice was coming from the waking world or his dreams.

“Ian Jakasan.”

“Fuck off,” Jackson said. He tried to bury his head deeper into his pillow.

A lightning bolt came out of the blue and grounded through Jackson’s dozing form. He jumped about a foot off the mattress. His sheets slipped off his convulsing form. His hair stood on end and his teeth clenched together so hard they would have bitten off the end of his tongue had it not already been turned back on itself like a slug dipped in salt.

It also woke him up.

After his body stopped twitching uncontrollably he took stock of his surroundings. It wasn’t the bed he’d gone to sleep in. It looked similar, but this was a different plain little bed in a different plain little bedroom. It had a single bookcase and single wardrobe, same as the plain little bedroom he’d fallen asleep in, but they were in different positions. Like the other bedroom, the room looked a prop department’s idea of what a plain little peasant’s bedroom should look like rather than a room someone actually lived in. That was because it wasn’t real. It was part of a computer game and Jackson was stuck inside it.

There was an angel floating at the foot of his bed. She had massive tits.

She smiled beatifically at Jackson like a mother to her brainless brat. She might have had a kind, maternal face, but the rest of her body was one hundred percent MILF, with the emphasis on the F. Her white dress was slinky rather than saintly. It hugged her shapely figure like a second skin and a split down the sides exposed the creamy-white flesh of her thighs. A pendant with a large red stone drew attention to her neck and the deep creamy valley of her cleavage beneath it.

Doubtless the Bible Belt would not approve of this depiction of an angel. Jackson supposed it could have been worse. At least she wasn’t blindfolded and tied up with bondage chains.

Jackson was too busy ogling her babelicious figure to notice she’d opened her mouth and was speaking to him. Not that it mattered. He couldn’t understand a word she was saying.

This was a first. Before, it hadn’t mattered where Jackson had been or who he’d talked to, everyone had spoken English back at him. Was this some kind of glitch or bug?

“I don’t understand,” he said to the angel in white.

She paused and asked him what he guessed was a question from the intonation of her voice. Jackson shrugged. He hadn’t understood that either.

The angel nodded and then carried on with her spiel in a language that was incomprehensible to Jackson.

Not carry on, repeat, he realized. He recognized some words. It sounded a lot like the same speech she’d tried to give him earlier.

“I don’t understand,” Jackson interrupted, growing frustrated.

The angel paused and asked him another, or even the same, question. Jackson didn’t understand, so he shrugged again. This time he was sure the angel was repeating the same speech right from the beginning.

Stupid game. It must have got stuck on the wrong language.

This time when the angel asked the question again he smiled brightly and nodded. If he didn’t the angel would just keep repeating the same piece over and over. Besides, he didn’t need to understand what she was saying, it was the same usual shit every JRPG started with.

I, angel of the giant mammaries, have chosen you to save the world/princess from the evil dragon/sorcerer/demon king. You of all the stupid-haired kids with unfeasibly large swords are the most likely to complete this arduous quest despite currently being a level one weakling that would immediately expire if the wild dogs roaming around the second village so much as sneezed on you. Now go, achieve your destiny, slaughter all the wildlife between here and the final castle while amassing enough to gold to crash the economies of every kingdom in the land. You will, of course, be able to carry this gold—all of it—around in your pockets.

As she spoke Jackson’s gaze dropped to the level of her cleavage and stayed there. He wouldn’t have minded putting his hands on those and giving them a good squeeze. Did wanting to squeeze the tits of an angel automatically doom him to hell?

Nah. She wasn’t real. She was just pixels, same as everything else around here.

Finally, her speech given, the angel faded away and Jackson was able to get back to sleep. He wasn’t out for long before a commotion outside woke him up.

Good morning, this is the alarm call for your tutorial quest.

He wondered what would happen if he stuffed a pillow over his ears and ignored it. No, he couldn’t risk it. It might trigger some kind of non-standard game over that left him trapped here for eternity.

Swearing, Jackson got out of bed and got dressed. He found an impressive-looking sword that must be shit because it was his starting weapon and all starting weapons were shit.

At least there were no NPC parents waiting in the kitchen to bore him with their single line of encouragement repeated over and over. That meant he must be the poor little orphan destined to save the entire kingdom or some other shit like that. It also meant this shitty little hovel was his alone. Nothing a good bulldozer couldn’t fix.

Outside, the inhabitants of Ye Olde Little Rustic Starting Village were running around and screaming their heads off as if the sky was falling down on top of them. They were also screaming the same gibberish language Jackson couldn’t understand.

A blessing. At least he didn’t need to worry about talking to each and every one of them on the off chance one of them had a vital piece of information he needed to find out. Smiling, he gave the panicking villagers a cheery wave and walked in the direction of their pointing fingers as nonchalantly as if he was heading down to the local 7-11 to pick up a case of beer.

Given he was level one and this was the starting village, it was probably something super lame like a butterfly or raccoon.

That pissed him off the most. When They—whoever They were—moved him from game to game, couldn’t they at least let him keep his levels. It fucking sucked having to start right from level one again and again.

Jackson reached the edge of the village where a dark, primeval forest encroached.

It was going to be a butterfly, or a dog, or maybe even a lone ferocious goblin.

Ooh, the terror.

Or it could be one of those stupid auto-lose fights against some enormous dragon or similar monster. Jackson wasn’t relishing that prospect. Sure, he couldn’t Game Over, but being stomped into the ground by a level bajillion dragon was fucking painful when you were actually in the game for real.

He walked between the trees. This was where the villagers had pointed to. No humongous dragon, which was a relief, but also no stupid butterfly or pansy level one monster either. Was this the right place?

Battle music played in the background.

Yep, it was the right place.

A blue splodge jumped out into the centre of the path and wobbled like an oversized plate of jelly.

Of course, he should have known. Obviously it was going to be a blue slime. It was always a fucking blue slime.

The blue blob bobbed and quivered. Protoplasm erupted out of the top and formed into the shape of a sexy young woman with humongous, jiggling boobies.

Jackson’s mouth fell open.

to be continued . . .The posting schedule might be a little erratic for the next week or so while my aging laptop decides whether or not it's going to expire completely. Sunday hopefully, a few days later if not.

From middle to high school I have no doubt that it was very formal. In my experience taking Japanese in the US midwest, they only did a little "casual" dialects. College level gets all over the board, but tends to get the working class dialects later on and rarely covers the "naughtier" words. Course that is what cultural immersion and peers are for. :-)

I wonder what Hydra's experience is with non-english languages. As he wrote this delightful story. I really hope someone brings him in to write the story line for a JRPG. :-D

I'm pretty bad with other languages (unless it's a programming language). I try to sneak some terminology in to give better flavour, but most of the time I'm hoping I don't make any embarrassing errors (like naming hot blonde strippers Vasya - a few Russian readers found that rather amusing).

Japanese seems to have a lot of quirks. Autotranslators really struggle with it. I don't think the Japanese find English that easy either. Must be different rules somewhere in the foundations of the languages.

Creating a game is definitely something I want to do at some point in the future. I'm not a big fan of the various RPG-makers though. I've played a few demos of hentai games that use them (and I'll probably put up a review of Mindia at some point) and the random encounter grinding + chibi graphics don't really fit for a good hentai game. Torotoro Resistance got it spot on with the visual novel look in Monster Girl Quest.

Hmm I think it's funny. In American schools they also try and teach English proper as they can (of course none of the teachers have an 'English' accent though so it's not proper! :3 ) Then the kiddies pick up all the silly dirty words from their buddies and bullies! I think the biggest issue with translating Japanese with machine is that the arrangement of words is almost backwards if you only translate the words. funnier still is things can be worded differently, not uncommon in English or other languages. lastly those silly Kanji c: who's job is it to come up with the universal phrase meaning of certain Kanji? P.S am not language expert just have some 'xperience. And go gettem M.N.Hydra!